Stage-Gate or phase-gate processes are deployed in many organizations across many industries. This has been the case for several years. Today, organizational changes and advancements in product development have left thework flow, decision flow, and data/information flowless than adequate. The Adept Group’s redesign expertise enables organizations to optimize development processes rapidly. We help re-craft the gated processes based on best-in-class practices, while keeping the good elements of existing processes and establishing new best-in-class practices:

Robust portfolio management

Pipeline (process flow) de-bottlenecking

Project management and planning

Project risk assessments

Product line planning & road mapping

Performance metrics

Strong management participation

Quality function deployment

Creativity & innovation

Deep “voice of the customer”

Risk assessment of concepts & portfolios

Technology & market mapping

Cross-organization & partner collaboration

Information systems & document management support

Perhaps the most significant impact on Stage-Gate type processes over the last several years has been the evolution of very strong Front-end processes — product line planning, new concept generation, and concept feasibility assessment. Without such processes, the burden of inadequate NPD projects fell to Stage-Gate development processes. Good frornt-end processes enable significant streamlining in the first few stages of development.

Systems support has also made notable impact on the design and flow of Stage-Gate processes. Now, both the workflow and decision-flow of the process can be supported and accelerated through information systems. In addition, such systems support also enables a direct connection of data between the development process and NPD portfolio and pipeline planning.

The Adept Group approach to Stage-Gate redesign enables organization to “not miss a beat” while driving rapid accrual of benefits from redesign. We work to build on existing foundations so as to speed benefit accrual.

Activities and timing are tailored to each organization.

See: Implementing a Stage-Gate Process by Paul O’Connor in The Journal of Product Innovation Management.

The Adept Group always work in the strictest of confidence. Clients often prefer to execute non-disclosure agreements or confidentiality agreements before exploring specific engagements. Please do not hesitate to bring up the topic of secrecy before initiating a dialogue with us.